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" The difficulty with big cities does not lie in skyscrapers or high-rises per se; rather, it is the values concealed within those buildings which lead to the loss of our humanity and our sense of spiritual emptiness. "

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" My first impression of Beverly Hills was that it had a landscape of small houses built by famous architects, so I didn't want to make a big block or sculpture here; I wanted to make a community rooted to the place. "

Ma Yansong

Famous

Small

Community

" Architecture is about experience: not only visual but also what you can touch, what you can feel. "

" The world itself is already a great textbook. "

" 'Shan shui' you can literally translate as 'mountain and water.' In traditional Chinese culture, there are a lot of paintings about shan shui, but now we're talking about a shan-shui city. "

" Since the Beijing Olympics in 2008, our office has been discussing how we can make architecture more human and at one with nature. We need to ask ourselves, what legacy do we want to leave behind on humankind's urban culture? "

" We try to turn buildings into landscapes - defying the idea of modernism which sees nature and buildings as two distinct elements. "

" People think that buildings are permanent, but in China, this isn't true; we can always demolish and remake it better. "

" I'm trying to express nature in big cities. "

" I don't like to talk about sustainability, because sometimes I see green buildings that don't appear any different from those in the past. "

" The way a human can coexist with nature has to be at the spiritual level. "

" The way we do our architecture is to show that we can come up with our own solutions. We don't just take orders. "

" Early in my career, I tried to bring an artistic feeling to architecture. That's really the intent and impression of what I think about: context, space, shapes, and landscape. "

" If you look at ancient Chinese paintings, you see mountains, but they are not real mountains; it is something the artists imagined. "

" In a traditional Japanese or Chinese garden, it's not only about the building or temple but about the whole setup - the structure, the landscape, the light, the plants, the water. The whole experience that makes your life there so beautiful. "

" Historically, sci-fi movies have played an important role in inspiring young people. "

" In our traditional culture, people have a very different view towards nature than in Western culture. We consider humans as part of nature. But in the West, they talk about protecting nature. That's a joke because nature doesn't care; it's humans who need to protect themselves. "

" We need to enter a new era to make nature and humans more emotionally connected in modern cities. "

" People can live in nature, and they won't necessarily destroy it. "

" In traditional cities like Beijing, Nanjing, and Hangzhou, nature was a very important part of urban planning - not only as a landscape but a part of daily life. "

Ma Yansong

Life

Nature

" I think architecture should be a stage, not something too material - more of an environment, not a product. "

" To allow millions of people to live together on limited land, we have to go to the sky; we have to build a high rise. But we can still build nature and social space into the towers. Each family can have their own courtyard in the sky. "

" The beauty of architecture is it involves work that stretches over a very long time but often starts in one instant, with just one emotion, a kind of instinctual response. "

" A door handle is very symbolic to me. It is the first object that one will interact with before entering a new space. "

" Traditionally, in the Eastern World, man and nature are close: men find happiness and prosperity in the beauty of nature, even if the nature is actually built to match this very need. "

" Architects think that beauty is a crime. "

" When I graduated from high school, I thought I wanted to make science fiction movies, so I applied to film school, but I couldn't get in. A professor told me I should try architecture instead. "

" What if we treat the high-rise like a mountain, or we have gardens in the sky, or waterfalls? I think that's the most challenging thing I want to try in my architecture. "

" In the past, young, talented architects worked together to form a strong social agenda and communicate with a larger audience. That's what today's architecture community should be. "

" We proposed Tiananmen Square - this very empty political square in the city centre - should turn green. Maybe in the future, this space could become a very human and open urban space. And if that happens, I think that all the cities around China will follow to change. "

" I think where traditional values are concerned, Chinese people see nature as very symbolic. It's a form of culture. "